Technique for locating an item of interest within a stored representation of data

Abstract

According to the present invention, a technique for locating an item of interest within a stored representation of data is disclosed. The item of interest is preferably located within a particular one of a plurality of stored representations of data in a network having a plurality of network stations. In one embodiment, the technique is realized by first searching a plurality of stored annotations corresponding to different items within a plurality of stored representations of data to locate an annotation of interest corresponding to the item of interest, wherein the annotation of interest has an associated search identifier. A search request is then transmitted, from a first of the plurality of network stations to a second of the plurality of network stations, for the search identifier and an associated address identifier corresponding to a location of the particular one of the plurality of stored representations of data within the plurality of stored representations of data. The address identifier is then received at the first network station.

Description

The present invention relates generally to the field of multimedia and, more particularly, to a technique for locating an item of interest within stored representation of data.There are a large number of organizations that presently have substantial amounts of audio, video, and image content in analog form. Many of these organizations are currently moving toward putting such multimedia content into digital form in order to save costs in the areas of data storage and retrieval. That is, similar to other types of data, multimedia content can be easily stored on and retrieved from relatively inexpensive digital storage devices.The migration of multimedia content from analog form to digital form also provides an organization with the ability to store, search, browse, and retrieve digitized multimedia content from distributed sites. That is, an organization having a number of distributed offices can store, search, browse, and retrieve digitized multimedia content from a centralized stora...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

"The present invention provides a technique for locating an item of interest within a stored representation of data in a network having multiple network stations. This is achieved by searching a plurality of stored annotations corresponding to different items of data within a particular representation. The technique allows for efficient and effective searching of large amounts of data, particularly in situations where the data is organized in a network database. The invention also provides a method for transmitting search and address identifiers between network stations and for combining location and address identifiers in an extended URL format. Overall, the invention improves the efficiency and accuracy of searching and retrieving data in distributed multimedia content databases."

Problems solved by technology

However, despite the above-described benefits associated with digitized multimedia content, organizations presently have little or no means of searching within multimedia content, organizing information about multimedia content, and delivering multimedia content in a ubiquitous manner.

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